Getting a flat in Singapore: BTO vs Resale

I agree. Recently there are calls from the public for the government to step in to address HDB sellers' profits, while some market observers feel that the government should stick to a hands-off policy on HDB sellers' profits.

​

In my humblest opinion, I agree to a large extent that the government should just focus on building the flats, pricing them correctly, and letting the market do the rest.

​

However, what the government can do is to reduce the speculative factor of HDB in prime areas, and the suggestion of extending the MOP to more than 5 years (e.g. 10 years) is worth considering so that individuals who applied for such HDB BTO will be more inclined long term homeowners in future.

​

On the other hand, personally, I do feel that the biggest issue for MND and HDB need to address in today's context is to shorten the waiting time from HDB application to completion, which can take as long as 6-7 years especially construction time has been extended due to Covid.

​

This actually disrupts young Singaporean plans to start a family, focusing them to enter the HDB resale market, or even worse purchase private residential which can overstretch their finances.

​

This is the fundamental reason why HDB resale and the private residential market is going on an extended bull run in today's Covid environment, which can be very unhealthy to our property market. If this is not managed properly, Singapore will end up becoming Hong Kong, although I do admit that our property market is very different from Hong Kong (e.g. SG government holds the majority of the land banks, HDB remains our largest developer, etc).